The haze is lifting

I feel it...I really do...the haze is lifting!

I feel that for the past 5 and a half years I have been living in a perpetual haze of exhaustion. Life has been but a collection of moments strung together that barely make any sense and have little cohesion. Survival has been the name of the game.

But over the last month or so, I have felt as though I was emerging from a dark hole in the ground, gulping a breath of fresh air, blinking in the sunlight.

I'm still not sleeping much at night, and I now have a blanket and pillow on the floor in Benjamin's room for the long nights when he doesn't settle well, but my afternoon naps have become short energy builders or non-existent. I have been able to use those two hours to my advantage (both house and husband are truly grateful!) I am finally getting in some personal study time, reading time, writing time.

My self-imposed house arrest seems to be going well; Benjamin is finally taking morning and afternoon naps as he should have been these past nine months. It took a friend on the outside asking me for sleeping advice for her eight month old, for me to realize what needed to be done for my own baby. And I'm not feeling as isolated as I thought I might. I am using the hour and a half in the morning to get one chore done, a little tidying, and then playing and teaching Caleb. By 10:30 Benjamin usually wakes, and we have an hour before I need to be getting lunch ready in time for afternoon nap, around 12:30. While the weather is holding out I try to get outside for a walk or a play at the park or in the backyard.

There is some order in my life again, and I will be all the happier for it. Although I don't expect life to be the same each and every day, I am happy to enjoy some constancy for a season.